Freedom from Nicotine

A free New Year's quitting program to help prepare you for success in 2008

Sunday, December 30, 2007, 2:30 to 4:30pm

Charleston County Main Library

68 Calhoun Street, Charleston, South Carolina

Click the above picture to see what small cell lung cancer can do to a 33 year-old body in just 64 days

"Freedom from Nicotine" Seminar

Think about it, what meaningful learning takes place when we slap on a nicotine patch, chew gum, swallow a pill or get hypnotized? Knowledge is a quitting method and the mind our most powerful quitting tool yet, sadly, far too many smokers never put the two together. Imagine fully understanding the recovery process and no longer being afraid. Imagine actually being excited about it and seeing each crave episode as a chance to extinguish another smoking cue and reclaim another slice of life.

But just how valuable can a quitting seminar be if totally free? My name is John R. Polito and I am a former 30-year, 3 pack-a-day smoker. For three solid decades, fighting in ignorance and darkness, I battled to break free yet always fell flat on my face. And then it happened. The Internet arrived and with it the chance to connect worldwide with real quitting experts, folks who had devoted their entire lives, full time, to teaching us how to quit and stay quit. Since 1999, as editor of WhyQuit, the Internet's most popular cold turkey quitting forum since 2001, I've shared the lessons that have been shared with me. Just as they reached out to me, I dream of sharing their gifts with you.

New Year's is by far the biggest quitting time of the year. But for me, it always quickly turned into a quitting nightmare. Looking back, it clearly didn't have to be that way. Having presented quitting seminars since 2001, primarily three years of bi-monthly seminars at the College of Charleston, in 2005 I decided to present a free New Year's Eve quitting seminar, to share the insights that had been shared with me.

Addiction warning label required on Canadian cigarette packs since 2000. There is no U.S. addiction warning label.

Drug addiction is about living a lie. It's about the mind's priorities teacher being taken hostage by an external chemical, and quickly yet falsely convincing us that this chemical gives us our edge, helps us cope, is core to our very being and that life without it would be utterly horrible. The real neuro-chemical "you" lies buried and forgotten beneath a large pile of the most powerful 3-D memories the mind is capable of generating, nicotine induced dopamine "aaah" memories. Digging out and reclaiming each aspect of life can be a wonderful experience, made so by understanding what's happening, why it happens, and how your journey home leads to a mind that again goes entire days without once thinking about wanting to use nicotine.

On this page are pictures of Bryan and Noni. The CDC tells us that roughly half of all South Carolina adult smokers are losing an average of 15.3 years of life, with one-quarter dying in middle-age (35-54). It isn't that Bryan and Noni didn't want to quit but that they never learned how. But had their captive minds found and read a page such as this, it is highly likely that the depth of their dependency would have been so great that they would have quickly found their mind inventing rationalizations as to why they shouldn't, couldn't and wouldn't attend.

Inventing rationalizations to explain the thinking mind's endless series of surrenders to a chemically captive compulsive mind, is why tobacco's annual worldwide death toll is greater than the entire population of our state. "Too stressful right now," "other plans," "a magic cure will be invented soon," "I already know this stuff," "I'll eventually figure this out on my own," "I have to work that Sunday afternoon," you are likely now witnessing the depth of your addiction at work. Nicotine dependency is as permanent and real as alcoholism and frighteningly similar to methamphetamine addiction.

Every two hours the amount of nicotine in the bloodstream is cut by half. There are only two choices, replace it or endure the onset of chemical withdrawal.

Imagine residing inside a mind so sick and so ill that, to date, it has been willing to trade 5,584 sunrises, and life itself, for one chemical - nicotine. Imagine knowing the likely cause of death that will be printed on your death certificate -- "smoking" -- yet, like Bryan and Noni, doing little or nothing to end your own senseless and gradual self-destruction.

It is normal to be afraid of both failure and success but don't let fear keep you captive and in darkness. Knowledge, insight and new skills can reduce or even shed those fears. The long forgotten person buried beneath that pile of nicotine "aaah" memories deserves a second chance ad freedom is their birthright and it's time to come home.

We have absolutely nothing to sell you, and actually refuse donations. You can come to the seminar yet remain anonymous. You won't be called upon. There are no forms to fill out. No one will take away your cigarettes, try to make you feel badly or tell you to quit. You will do so when you are ready. It is my hope to have the honor of helping prepare you to succeed, when your chosen day at last arrives.

Breathe deep, hug hard, live long,

About the Program

The program is free and open to all who are dependent upon nicotine regardless of the manner delivered into the bloodstream. Smokers, smokeless tobacco users and those hooked on NRT products are invited to join us and bring along that key supporter.

Click the above picture to see why this 32 year-old new mother was dead 94 days after this picture was taken.

Seminar Content: The onset of true chemical dependency is explored as nicotine imitated acetylcholine in exerting control over the flow of more than 200 neurochemicals, including select dopamine (reward), serotonin (mood) and adrenaline (stimulation) pathways. You'll discover how the brain defended against a flood of nicotine by growing millions of extra receptors and desensitizing critical brain pathways. You will witness smokings impact upon every living cell in the body and at last understand why more smokers die of circulatory disease than cancer. You'll learn how to cope with and diminish the anxieties that can occur during the re-sensitization process.

WhyQuit's basic "how to quit smoking" video

Read our free quitting e-books

Read both and watch knowledge destroy quitting anxieties!

Learn More About Smart Turkey Quitting

WhyQuit.com - WhyQuit is the Internet's oldest forum devoted to the art, science and psychology of cold turkey quitting, the stop smoking method used by the vast majority of all successful long-term ex-smokers. Left to right, WhyQuit is organized under three headings: (1) Motivation, (2) Education and (3) Support.

"Never Take Another Puff" - Imagine a free 149 page stop smoking ebook that's registered more than 4 million downloads and was written by a man who has devoted 40 years, full-time to helping smokers quit. Never Take Another Puff (NTAP) was authored by Joel Spitzer, the Internet's leading authority on how to stop smoking cold turkey. It is an insightful collection of almost 100 articles on every cessation topic imaginable.

"Freedom from Nicotine - The Journey Home" - Written by John R. Polito, a former 30-year heavy smoker and WhyQuit's 1999 founder, Freedom from Nicotine (FFN) is a free nicotine dependency recovery book that documents the science underlying nicotine dependency and successful cessation. Whether hooked on cigarettes, e-cigarettes (e-cigs), bidis, kreteks, a pipe, hookah or cigars, on dip, chew, snuff or snus, or on the nicotine gum, lozenge, spray, inhaler or patch, FFN provides a comprehensive yet easy to follow road-map to freedom from nicotine.

Turkeyville - Visit Turkeyville, Facebook's most popular quit smoking support group. The group's primary focus is the first few days and helping new quitters get started. Yes you can!

Joel's Library - Joel's Library is home to Joel Spitzer's "Daily Quitting Lesson Guide." The Guide walks new quitters through the first two weeks of smoking cessation, recommending daily videos to watch and articles to read. Joel's Library is also home to more than 100 original short stop smoking articles, to his free ebook Never Take Another Puff, and to his collection of more than 200 video stop smoking lessons.

Freedom - Looking for a deadly serious and highly focused education oriented support group? Home to Joel Spitzer, Freedom is the Internet's only 100% nicotine-free peer messageboard support forum. Explore Freedom's hundreds of thousands of archived member posts on how to quit smoking.